a sideways eight
a sideways eight
Kris (EXO-M) x Victoria (f(x)), Kris (EXO-M) x Chanyeol (EXO-K), Kris (EXO-M) x Tao (EXO-M), Kris (EXO-M) x Luhan (EXO-M)
PG-13; 3117w
Kris loves Victoria. He just hasn't realized it yet.
A/N: Written for qian_xin as a part of wufantastic. Original Link
내 손 잡아요 떠나게 말아요
Timeless 이별은 아니죠
한번의 삶이라면 지금뿐인데
Hold tight baby
Timeless 이 가슴에 묻어요
순간의 열병처럼 잠시만 아플뿐이니
We both agree this is timeless love
Hold my hand so I can't leave.
Timeless, it's not separation, is it?
If this is love, then the present is all that matters.
Hold tight baby.
Timeless; bury it in this heart.
Like a moment's fever, it'll only hurt briefly.
We both agree this is timeless love.
Zhang Liyin and Xiah Junsu, Timeless
“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.”
Victoria does not command with that voice so sweet, sugared by cheer and joy. It rings like a suggestion instead, hoping to coax some part of him from out of his chest.
Kris looks up from his coffee cup, the bitter dark liquid having long gone cold. Victoria’s teasing expression betrays nothing, as expected, and he realizes it’s something he should’ve adapted to long ago. He wears his own masks of neutrality and apathy but Victoria’s gentle smiles and blissful glitter conceals just as well.
“I don’t think there’s anything worth telling.”
Victoria swirls her spoon in her nearly empty cup, but doesn’t drink. “I guess the only thing you wouldn’t tell anyone else is something painful.” Victoria lets the spoon fall with a decisive clink. “Tell me about your breakups, then.”
“Why are you interested in that?”
“You look like the type to leave a trail of broken hearts behind you.”
Kris frowns but doesn’t voice the immediate question that pricks at his tongue. Were you one of them?
“There weren’t that much. Just six.”
Victoria nods, indicating for him to continue, still coaxing, still affectionate, the tender hand to pet the beast.
“First there was you and then-“
“-start from there.”
Kris blinks, then a wide eyed stare of disbelief. “But you know the story.”
Victoria smiles reassuringly and Kris feels like he's suddenly dancing in her palm. “It doesn’t hurt for you to tell it again.”
Kris thinks back to that night at the near empty parking lot where the air had been chilly, affected only by a small touch of Autumn, but not yet so frosty that his steady breaths had leaked from his lips in white smoky wisps. The celebratory dinner, trite but standard, for their basketball team’s recent victory had just finished and Kris intended to ask Victoria out afterwards.
He had been calm then, strangely so. His fingers were dry against his palms; he didn’t fidget or feel that odd sense of embarrassment tickling his ribs. His heart was beating on as usual, dull and dead when others expected love to cut out bloody gashes. It was a testament, Kris had thought, of just how far his feelings went. Or didn’t.
If anyone had bothered to asked him why, and none would’ve thought to because it was something that made sense even when it really didn’t, Kris would say he wanted to ask her out not because he liked her in the traditional sense: the stomach full of swollen cocoons, the lightning beneath his fingertips and the broken lungs that never seemed to work. No, he did it because it made sense, even when it really didn’t. Just like every one of his fans and every one of his teammates and every one of the members on the dance team told him during classes, in between games and during lunch, it just made sense.
He was the new rising basketball star, the only one among the new tryouts to stand out, and she, the much loved captain of the dance team. They were both beautiful, both popular and both Chinese exchange students in a Korean high school, so surely it was a match made in heaven. It was the kind of romance people would love to see and the kind of pairing anyone would support wholeheartedly. They were jigsaw puzzles meant to be put together, the pegs in the holes. Never mind that they were three years apart and she was on her last year of high school while he was on his first; it shouldn’t matter that college was nothing but a looming obstacle well hidden in the corners of his mind while for Victoria it was a sudden and frighteningly real tomorrow; people who dated in high school shouldn’t expect longevity anyways.
He hadn’t prepared a flowery planned script or an extravagant display of flowers and gifts, but something true to his character, simple, casual, with only the addition of his Mandarin tongue for a bonus. A standard weekend date at a movie of her choice.
The warm caring smile she had given him when she said yes was surprising. Not because he expected her to be crass or cruel and rejection held no bite, but because he’d never been on the receiving end of that smile directly before. It made him realize then, in that small part of his heart that he never paid attention to why so many people at school loved her. The warmth in that smile and the crinkle of the corners of her eyes was the same warmth one felt when they watched her dance, limbs all limber and graceful steps precise and sharp.
It was breathtaking.
He hadn’t given much thought to the sudden hitch in his throat or the sweat that lined his palms or the possibility that this girl was far more wonderful and lovely than he first imagined. His thoughts did not to wander back to the only time he’d ever watched her perform a routine before a game and the smile on her face that seemed far brighter than the glaring lights of the gymnasium and her laugh afterwards that seemed far sweeter than anything he’s ever tasted.
And most of all, he definitely didn’t dare plant that little seed of an idea in the dirt of his brain, that little tiny idea that he could potentially see himself falling in love with her, if falling in love was even a possibility for him.
“We broke up because you were graduating.” Kris keeps his voice light, detached, unfeeling. But it’s not as easy as it used to be, because Victoria is not a stranger anymore.
“Ah! Are you blaming it on me?” The anger is faked and still Victoria dances and teases, prods him in all the places he knows he can’t protect.
“No. It was a mutual breakup.”
“Was it?”
A crease in his brow, a crease in his lips and certainly deep inside, a crease in his heart. “Wasn’t it?”
Dates with Victoria had been simple. Spending time with Victoria had been simple. Kissing Victoria had been simple.
Back then, Kris had gone through all of the motions, but never stopping to wonder if he felt a spark.
Neither side carried any hurt over the breakup; it was a mutual separation, at least that was how Kris saw it. He didn’t go into thr relationship expecting it to last and Victoria was not his bride to be in the ethereal white dress. Nobody expected high school romances to last and with Victoria leaving for college, the breakup was for the best.
Wasn’t it?
There are no tears nor screams nor fights nor scathing insults typed up on social media sites like some of the other messy breakups he had the misfortune of witnessing. Victoria was understanding and kind, still with her gentle smile and teasing remarks and that warmth in his chest simmered just the same as the day he asked her out. So Kris had taken heart in the fact that he was breaking up with her for the same reason he asked her out. Because it made sense, even when it really didn’t.
Besides, what did high school students know about love?
“What makes you so sure I wanted us to break up?” Nothing has changed in her posture, nothing has changed in her voice, and nothing should have changed in his reasoning, but Kris feels something sink in his gut, his mouth suddenly withered and dry. But she offers him some mercy. “Who was the next one?”
Kris studies the table, the wooden surface a pale brown. He thinks he can see faces swirling in woodwork. “Chanyeol.”
Chanyeol was the college roommate met through potluck. Kris hadn’t really cared either way if he lived in an apartment or a dorm as long as his roommate was able to respect his need of privacy.
But Chanyeol was like a force of nature. Everything about him seemed to be too much. His ears were too big, his limbs too long, his energy too much and his smile, that happy happy smile, seemed to stretch far too wide for his face.
It was only a few weeks later that Kris finally realized with some certainty, that Chanyeol was gay. Or at the very least bisexual. Kris had never been all too caring of presenting his nude body in front of others but the long lingering looks Chanyeol gave him out of the corner of his eye told him much.
That, and his louder than necessary talks with his friends over the phone about how hot his roommate was when he thought Kris couldn’t hear him.
Kris had never given thought to the boundaries of his sexual orientation but he was certain he wouldn’t care either way.
A few weeks after that and Kris was also certain Chanyeol was trying to seduce him. A roommate can only walk in on you showering so many times. A roommate can only walk around naked whenever you were as well so many times. Chanyeol’s voice was always so thick and deep, rumbling with temptation and desire. His eyes burned, charring Kris’s shoulders, the length of his spine and on more than one occasion, his buttocks.
When Chanyeol finally stopped the subtleties and straight out asked, Kris, with a steady heart, said yes. Yes, because he’s a freshmen in college just like he was a freshmen in high school back then and there was nothing wrong with entering a relationship at such a time. Yes, because Chanyeol found him attractive and went out of his way to try to seduce him. Yes, because maybe what Kris needs is impulse and chaos and for the first time since he went to college he thought about Victoria, sweet pleasant Victoria, who he went out with only because it made sense, even when it really didn’t.
“Chanyeol was really energetic. It seemed like he was always dragging me somewhere, introducing me to someone and wanting me to do something.” Kris pauses, and rubs his fingers across the table. The faces stare back at him. “I didn’t hate it. It was a nice change.”
Dates with Chanyeol had not been simple. Spending time with Chanyeol had not been simple. Kissing Chanyeol had not been simple. The dates always started and ended with Chanyeol’s hand in his, leading him everywhere, not caring for his refusals or rejections. They were not always private either, and Kris often found himself at parties with a drink in his hand and his back against the wall as he trailed his boyfriend with his eyes from one corner of the room to the other. Chanyeol knew what he wanted and took it whenever he could. Kissing was never so much a perceived form of mutual affection as it was lust and hunger.
“I think overtime he got tired of having to always be the one pulling.”
“Did you say it first?” Her fingers find their way to him, touching his skin lightly, leaving tingles in their wake.
“Yeah.”
“Was it mutual?” Taps across his knuckles, taps across his wrist.
“Yeah.”
“How did you know?”
“He told me.”
It wasn’t sad this time either, at least Kris hope it wasn’t. Chanyeol wasn’t nice like Victoria, if he wanted you to see his heart, rip it out bare and bleeding, he wouldn’t think twice before he did it. There wasn’t anger or guilt but a weary resignation and Chanyeol made sure Kris’s shoulders would always ache from the weight of that burden.
Kris had hoped they could still remain friends. Chanyeol had called him an idiot.
“And then, strangely, I met you again.”
He didn’t intend to see her again, maybe not for a long long time. In his thoughts, however rare, it was always at a high school reunion or one day when he was browsing social media sites he would spontaneously decide to look her up for nostalgia’s sake.
He never thought he’d see her in a local coffee shop (because in the end Chanyeol moved out and Kris decided to as well, to an apartment in a new neighborhood).
It was easy, talking to Victoria. It always had been. He found himself molded back into familiar shapes and feelings, almost as if they never broke up and he was simply taking a break.
It was painfully easy to think of it that way.
“And then we dated again, right?”
“But that also ended." What was the point of this questioning? What was Victoria looking for? What was she trying to hear? They talk of the end of their relationship with one another with neither weight nor woe. "You were always busy with work and I was always busy with school. We were in different places.”
“Are you blaming me for this too?”
“No. It was mutual.” Right?
“Was it? “
“Wasn’t it?” Right?
Victoria smiles, teases him for his folly. “Should we skip ahead to our third breakup as well, then?”
“You’re the one who wants to know.”
“Continue on then.”
“Next was Tao.”
Kris met Tao properly the day the younger boy confessed to him.
Apparently they had met before, but Kris never remembered him. Maybe it was at a class somewhere or at a party that Chanyeol forced him to. School was merely a ticking clock and Kris’s thoughts were on the future, not the present. He shouldn’t consider dating now, should he? So why did he say yes?
Was it to try to forget the woman he knew he would always return to? Was it to save her? Was it to save himself?
“I think you would’ve gotten along well with Tao. You’re good with childish people.”
Victoria giggles. “Talking about yourself?”
Tao was needy and looked at Kris with such admiration and respect at times he wondered if they were really dating or not. Dates with Tao involved shopping, mostly. Tao would plead and whine for him to buy things with him and seemed to know the perfect way to mold his features to get Kris to follow behind.
“I broke up with him because I felt guilty. He liked me so much that anything I felt for him paled in comparison. It wouldn’t be fair to continue.”
Kris hated it when Tao cried and hated it that he was doing this to the other boy. But the pain of forcing something that never was or could be would be far more disastrous in the long run.
He could only hope Tao would understand some day.
“And then, I came back to you again. As expected.”
Kris wonders if everyone treated their ex’s this way. Always carrying a head full of memories, thinking about what was and could be. Victoria always made it too easy for him to come back.
“I think my time with Tao affected me too much." Kris examines their joined hands, the physical connection that he had gotten used to so fast. "It shouldn’t be so easy for me to keep on dating you and breaking up with you and I thought what I did you to you was just like how I was treating Tao so I wanted to end it for good and let you date someone who loved you more.”
Victoria entwines their fingers together. “Did you think someone like that existed?”
Kris doesn’t respond and ignores it outright. It's not his question to answer.
“Then there was Luhan.”
Luhan was the coworker, the one in the cubicle next to him who smiled so charmingly. The beautiful beautiful man who was older than him, but never seemed to reflect that distance. Kris realized in those moments together that this is what attraction and appeal feels like. This was what it felt like to struggle and want and Kris found himself nervous and excited all at the same time for maybe the first time in his entire life.
He didn't think about Victoria then, sweet sweet adorable Victoria who would be there when Luhan vanishes.
Dates with Luhan were a mess. Kris never knew if he was doing anything right. Did Luhan enjoy his time with him? Was Luhan bored? Was Luhan excited? Luhan seemed to smile through it all, never giving an indication of displeasure or joy.
In the end, the only time Kris did not ponder such things was in bed where the mingling of flesh and sighs and moans and groans overpowered him and his heart sang with contentment because he finally grabbed what he desired.
“He dumped me this time actually. But it wasn’t a shock. I think we both knew the relationship had ended becoming too physical. There were no feelings between us and neither of us wanted to continue down that path.” Kris sighs. “And that’s it. Are you satisfied?”
Victoria hums thoughtfully. “Are you back for round four?”
Kris quickly withdraws his hand and stuffs it in his pocket, trying to forget the softness, the smoothness, the familiar comfort of her touch.
“No." Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. "Would you let me?”
“Sure.”
Kris bites his lips. Bites down against the question that he wants to ask. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
She leans forward, lithe body pressing against the table, and he feels himself scoot back, even when the movement feels wrong. “You can ask the question, you know.”
Kris sighs, but his heart still feels just as heavy. “Do you.” He looks up, into her eyes, and hopefully, straight straight into her heart. Would there be answers there? “Did you love me?”
Victoria tilts her head, hair swaying with the gesture and laughs. “Maybe?”
“Why?”
Victoria smiles and it’s still there, the warmth, nostaglic and welcoming and Kris wonders how no matter how many times he leaves and no matter how many times he thinks he should, it never feels like he left.
Maybe this was love?
“Do I need a reason to?”
Kris (EXO-M) x Victoria (f(x)), Kris (EXO-M) x Chanyeol (EXO-K), Kris (EXO-M) x Tao (EXO-M), Kris (EXO-M) x Luhan (EXO-M)
PG-13; 3117w
Kris loves Victoria. He just hasn't realized it yet.
A/N: Written for qian_xin as a part of wufantastic. Original Link
내 손 잡아요 떠나게 말아요
Timeless 이별은 아니죠
한번의 삶이라면 지금뿐인데
Hold tight baby
Timeless 이 가슴에 묻어요
순간의 열병처럼 잠시만 아플뿐이니
We both agree this is timeless love
Hold my hand so I can't leave.
Timeless, it's not separation, is it?
If this is love, then the present is all that matters.
Hold tight baby.
Timeless; bury it in this heart.
Like a moment's fever, it'll only hurt briefly.
We both agree this is timeless love.
Zhang Liyin and Xiah Junsu, Timeless
“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.”
Victoria does not command with that voice so sweet, sugared by cheer and joy. It rings like a suggestion instead, hoping to coax some part of him from out of his chest.
Kris looks up from his coffee cup, the bitter dark liquid having long gone cold. Victoria’s teasing expression betrays nothing, as expected, and he realizes it’s something he should’ve adapted to long ago. He wears his own masks of neutrality and apathy but Victoria’s gentle smiles and blissful glitter conceals just as well.
“I don’t think there’s anything worth telling.”
Victoria swirls her spoon in her nearly empty cup, but doesn’t drink. “I guess the only thing you wouldn’t tell anyone else is something painful.” Victoria lets the spoon fall with a decisive clink. “Tell me about your breakups, then.”
“Why are you interested in that?”
“You look like the type to leave a trail of broken hearts behind you.”
Kris frowns but doesn’t voice the immediate question that pricks at his tongue. Were you one of them?
“There weren’t that much. Just six.”
Victoria nods, indicating for him to continue, still coaxing, still affectionate, the tender hand to pet the beast.
“First there was you and then-“
“-start from there.”
Kris blinks, then a wide eyed stare of disbelief. “But you know the story.”
Victoria smiles reassuringly and Kris feels like he's suddenly dancing in her palm. “It doesn’t hurt for you to tell it again.”
Kris thinks back to that night at the near empty parking lot where the air had been chilly, affected only by a small touch of Autumn, but not yet so frosty that his steady breaths had leaked from his lips in white smoky wisps. The celebratory dinner, trite but standard, for their basketball team’s recent victory had just finished and Kris intended to ask Victoria out afterwards.
He had been calm then, strangely so. His fingers were dry against his palms; he didn’t fidget or feel that odd sense of embarrassment tickling his ribs. His heart was beating on as usual, dull and dead when others expected love to cut out bloody gashes. It was a testament, Kris had thought, of just how far his feelings went. Or didn’t.
If anyone had bothered to asked him why, and none would’ve thought to because it was something that made sense even when it really didn’t, Kris would say he wanted to ask her out not because he liked her in the traditional sense: the stomach full of swollen cocoons, the lightning beneath his fingertips and the broken lungs that never seemed to work. No, he did it because it made sense, even when it really didn’t. Just like every one of his fans and every one of his teammates and every one of the members on the dance team told him during classes, in between games and during lunch, it just made sense.
He was the new rising basketball star, the only one among the new tryouts to stand out, and she, the much loved captain of the dance team. They were both beautiful, both popular and both Chinese exchange students in a Korean high school, so surely it was a match made in heaven. It was the kind of romance people would love to see and the kind of pairing anyone would support wholeheartedly. They were jigsaw puzzles meant to be put together, the pegs in the holes. Never mind that they were three years apart and she was on her last year of high school while he was on his first; it shouldn’t matter that college was nothing but a looming obstacle well hidden in the corners of his mind while for Victoria it was a sudden and frighteningly real tomorrow; people who dated in high school shouldn’t expect longevity anyways.
He hadn’t prepared a flowery planned script or an extravagant display of flowers and gifts, but something true to his character, simple, casual, with only the addition of his Mandarin tongue for a bonus. A standard weekend date at a movie of her choice.
The warm caring smile she had given him when she said yes was surprising. Not because he expected her to be crass or cruel and rejection held no bite, but because he’d never been on the receiving end of that smile directly before. It made him realize then, in that small part of his heart that he never paid attention to why so many people at school loved her. The warmth in that smile and the crinkle of the corners of her eyes was the same warmth one felt when they watched her dance, limbs all limber and graceful steps precise and sharp.
It was breathtaking.
He hadn’t given much thought to the sudden hitch in his throat or the sweat that lined his palms or the possibility that this girl was far more wonderful and lovely than he first imagined. His thoughts did not to wander back to the only time he’d ever watched her perform a routine before a game and the smile on her face that seemed far brighter than the glaring lights of the gymnasium and her laugh afterwards that seemed far sweeter than anything he’s ever tasted.
And most of all, he definitely didn’t dare plant that little seed of an idea in the dirt of his brain, that little tiny idea that he could potentially see himself falling in love with her, if falling in love was even a possibility for him.
“We broke up because you were graduating.” Kris keeps his voice light, detached, unfeeling. But it’s not as easy as it used to be, because Victoria is not a stranger anymore.
“Ah! Are you blaming it on me?” The anger is faked and still Victoria dances and teases, prods him in all the places he knows he can’t protect.
“No. It was a mutual breakup.”
“Was it?”
A crease in his brow, a crease in his lips and certainly deep inside, a crease in his heart. “Wasn’t it?”
Dates with Victoria had been simple. Spending time with Victoria had been simple. Kissing Victoria had been simple.
Back then, Kris had gone through all of the motions, but never stopping to wonder if he felt a spark.
Neither side carried any hurt over the breakup; it was a mutual separation, at least that was how Kris saw it. He didn’t go into thr relationship expecting it to last and Victoria was not his bride to be in the ethereal white dress. Nobody expected high school romances to last and with Victoria leaving for college, the breakup was for the best.
Wasn’t it?
There are no tears nor screams nor fights nor scathing insults typed up on social media sites like some of the other messy breakups he had the misfortune of witnessing. Victoria was understanding and kind, still with her gentle smile and teasing remarks and that warmth in his chest simmered just the same as the day he asked her out. So Kris had taken heart in the fact that he was breaking up with her for the same reason he asked her out. Because it made sense, even when it really didn’t.
Besides, what did high school students know about love?
“What makes you so sure I wanted us to break up?” Nothing has changed in her posture, nothing has changed in her voice, and nothing should have changed in his reasoning, but Kris feels something sink in his gut, his mouth suddenly withered and dry. But she offers him some mercy. “Who was the next one?”
Kris studies the table, the wooden surface a pale brown. He thinks he can see faces swirling in woodwork. “Chanyeol.”
Chanyeol was the college roommate met through potluck. Kris hadn’t really cared either way if he lived in an apartment or a dorm as long as his roommate was able to respect his need of privacy.
But Chanyeol was like a force of nature. Everything about him seemed to be too much. His ears were too big, his limbs too long, his energy too much and his smile, that happy happy smile, seemed to stretch far too wide for his face.
It was only a few weeks later that Kris finally realized with some certainty, that Chanyeol was gay. Or at the very least bisexual. Kris had never been all too caring of presenting his nude body in front of others but the long lingering looks Chanyeol gave him out of the corner of his eye told him much.
That, and his louder than necessary talks with his friends over the phone about how hot his roommate was when he thought Kris couldn’t hear him.
Kris had never given thought to the boundaries of his sexual orientation but he was certain he wouldn’t care either way.
A few weeks after that and Kris was also certain Chanyeol was trying to seduce him. A roommate can only walk in on you showering so many times. A roommate can only walk around naked whenever you were as well so many times. Chanyeol’s voice was always so thick and deep, rumbling with temptation and desire. His eyes burned, charring Kris’s shoulders, the length of his spine and on more than one occasion, his buttocks.
When Chanyeol finally stopped the subtleties and straight out asked, Kris, with a steady heart, said yes. Yes, because he’s a freshmen in college just like he was a freshmen in high school back then and there was nothing wrong with entering a relationship at such a time. Yes, because Chanyeol found him attractive and went out of his way to try to seduce him. Yes, because maybe what Kris needs is impulse and chaos and for the first time since he went to college he thought about Victoria, sweet pleasant Victoria, who he went out with only because it made sense, even when it really didn’t.
“Chanyeol was really energetic. It seemed like he was always dragging me somewhere, introducing me to someone and wanting me to do something.” Kris pauses, and rubs his fingers across the table. The faces stare back at him. “I didn’t hate it. It was a nice change.”
Dates with Chanyeol had not been simple. Spending time with Chanyeol had not been simple. Kissing Chanyeol had not been simple. The dates always started and ended with Chanyeol’s hand in his, leading him everywhere, not caring for his refusals or rejections. They were not always private either, and Kris often found himself at parties with a drink in his hand and his back against the wall as he trailed his boyfriend with his eyes from one corner of the room to the other. Chanyeol knew what he wanted and took it whenever he could. Kissing was never so much a perceived form of mutual affection as it was lust and hunger.
“I think overtime he got tired of having to always be the one pulling.”
“Did you say it first?” Her fingers find their way to him, touching his skin lightly, leaving tingles in their wake.
“Yeah.”
“Was it mutual?” Taps across his knuckles, taps across his wrist.
“Yeah.”
“How did you know?”
“He told me.”
It wasn’t sad this time either, at least Kris hope it wasn’t. Chanyeol wasn’t nice like Victoria, if he wanted you to see his heart, rip it out bare and bleeding, he wouldn’t think twice before he did it. There wasn’t anger or guilt but a weary resignation and Chanyeol made sure Kris’s shoulders would always ache from the weight of that burden.
Kris had hoped they could still remain friends. Chanyeol had called him an idiot.
“And then, strangely, I met you again.”
He didn’t intend to see her again, maybe not for a long long time. In his thoughts, however rare, it was always at a high school reunion or one day when he was browsing social media sites he would spontaneously decide to look her up for nostalgia’s sake.
He never thought he’d see her in a local coffee shop (because in the end Chanyeol moved out and Kris decided to as well, to an apartment in a new neighborhood).
It was easy, talking to Victoria. It always had been. He found himself molded back into familiar shapes and feelings, almost as if they never broke up and he was simply taking a break.
It was painfully easy to think of it that way.
“And then we dated again, right?”
“But that also ended." What was the point of this questioning? What was Victoria looking for? What was she trying to hear? They talk of the end of their relationship with one another with neither weight nor woe. "You were always busy with work and I was always busy with school. We were in different places.”
“Are you blaming me for this too?”
“No. It was mutual.” Right?
“Was it? “
“Wasn’t it?” Right?
Victoria smiles, teases him for his folly. “Should we skip ahead to our third breakup as well, then?”
“You’re the one who wants to know.”
“Continue on then.”
“Next was Tao.”
Kris met Tao properly the day the younger boy confessed to him.
Apparently they had met before, but Kris never remembered him. Maybe it was at a class somewhere or at a party that Chanyeol forced him to. School was merely a ticking clock and Kris’s thoughts were on the future, not the present. He shouldn’t consider dating now, should he? So why did he say yes?
Was it to try to forget the woman he knew he would always return to? Was it to save her? Was it to save himself?
“I think you would’ve gotten along well with Tao. You’re good with childish people.”
Victoria giggles. “Talking about yourself?”
Tao was needy and looked at Kris with such admiration and respect at times he wondered if they were really dating or not. Dates with Tao involved shopping, mostly. Tao would plead and whine for him to buy things with him and seemed to know the perfect way to mold his features to get Kris to follow behind.
“I broke up with him because I felt guilty. He liked me so much that anything I felt for him paled in comparison. It wouldn’t be fair to continue.”
Kris hated it when Tao cried and hated it that he was doing this to the other boy. But the pain of forcing something that never was or could be would be far more disastrous in the long run.
He could only hope Tao would understand some day.
“And then, I came back to you again. As expected.”
Kris wonders if everyone treated their ex’s this way. Always carrying a head full of memories, thinking about what was and could be. Victoria always made it too easy for him to come back.
“I think my time with Tao affected me too much." Kris examines their joined hands, the physical connection that he had gotten used to so fast. "It shouldn’t be so easy for me to keep on dating you and breaking up with you and I thought what I did you to you was just like how I was treating Tao so I wanted to end it for good and let you date someone who loved you more.”
Victoria entwines their fingers together. “Did you think someone like that existed?”
Kris doesn’t respond and ignores it outright. It's not his question to answer.
“Then there was Luhan.”
Luhan was the coworker, the one in the cubicle next to him who smiled so charmingly. The beautiful beautiful man who was older than him, but never seemed to reflect that distance. Kris realized in those moments together that this is what attraction and appeal feels like. This was what it felt like to struggle and want and Kris found himself nervous and excited all at the same time for maybe the first time in his entire life.
He didn't think about Victoria then, sweet sweet adorable Victoria who would be there when Luhan vanishes.
Dates with Luhan were a mess. Kris never knew if he was doing anything right. Did Luhan enjoy his time with him? Was Luhan bored? Was Luhan excited? Luhan seemed to smile through it all, never giving an indication of displeasure or joy.
In the end, the only time Kris did not ponder such things was in bed where the mingling of flesh and sighs and moans and groans overpowered him and his heart sang with contentment because he finally grabbed what he desired.
“He dumped me this time actually. But it wasn’t a shock. I think we both knew the relationship had ended becoming too physical. There were no feelings between us and neither of us wanted to continue down that path.” Kris sighs. “And that’s it. Are you satisfied?”
Victoria hums thoughtfully. “Are you back for round four?”
Kris quickly withdraws his hand and stuffs it in his pocket, trying to forget the softness, the smoothness, the familiar comfort of her touch.
“No." Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. "Would you let me?”
“Sure.”
Kris bites his lips. Bites down against the question that he wants to ask. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
She leans forward, lithe body pressing against the table, and he feels himself scoot back, even when the movement feels wrong. “You can ask the question, you know.”
Kris sighs, but his heart still feels just as heavy. “Do you.” He looks up, into her eyes, and hopefully, straight straight into her heart. Would there be answers there? “Did you love me?”
Victoria tilts her head, hair swaying with the gesture and laughs. “Maybe?”
“Why?”
Victoria smiles and it’s still there, the warmth, nostaglic and welcoming and Kris wonders how no matter how many times he leaves and no matter how many times he thinks he should, it never feels like he left.
Maybe this was love?
“Do I need a reason to?”